Hi Fjells,
I think like you say its very important to understand your hormones. I also think its really important to get in touch with your cycle and generally how you feel throughout it. I was fascinated to find how my cycle affects me on a daily basis and the commonalities that I experience at similar times each cycle, such as mid-cycle pain. I am keeping a cycle diary, where I write in it every day how I feel, in terms of any health issues, how I feel mentally e.g. tired or not etc, and what I eat. I've been doing this for about 3 months now, and when you look back its really interesting. And it makes you feel more in control of your health. At least I know for instance, that day 13/14 of my cycle, I will most likely get some pain, and be a bit bloated. Knowing that, I can prepare for it mentally!, be very careful what I eat on those days, and even make sure I'm not going out partying or anything like that too!
I would really recommend getting a blood test to see if that comes up with anything (alot of times blood tests for hormones may not show up a problem, even if there is one), and a full blood test to make sure you aren't deficient in anything. I am getting a full blood test next week.
I bought the book called "Life without bread", I am getting really interested in diet (obviously not in the losing weight sense of the term!). Even though things like brown rice etc do seem healthy, it may be that you are eating too many carbohydrates which in turn, turn into sugars. So its very important to make sure you aren't eating too much (even if it does on face value seem that those things may be healthy).
I think I also purchased a book about hormones and how to understand them, but that one hasn't arrived yet.
Do you make your own iced tea? I got addicted to Lipton Iced Tea about 6 months ago, and just drank it all the time. But then I realised it was sooooo full of sugar! So I stopped. I used to always drink fruit juice as well, although mostly actual fresh fruit like oranges. But stopped that too because fruit is just such a huge sugar kick.
Anyhow, I did a quiz thing on the internet the other day, it was to find out what kind of metabolic typing diet I have. I got protein. Which means I need to eat lots of protein. That makes alot of sense, because all through my youth, I always ate tonnes of protein, way more than my friends did. Although I also ate alot of sugary bad stuff too, which used to give me extreme bursts of energy and then lows. Check it out on google, here is one site, but there are others with quizzes you can do -
http://altmedicine.about.com/od/popularh...icType.htm
Oh, and on the diet subject, I was a vegan for about 1 year about 9 years ago. But I didn't really know what I was doing, and I remember I got tired all the time and sick quite alot. In the end, I went back to my meat-eatting ways.......
Hey Noella - yep, its definitely harder for us AAAAAAAAA ones to grow anything! What do you mean about temperature? I'm generally cold all the time! The last couple of days I've been cutting up ginger root and making it into a tea. I hear that helps increase circulation. Should make me warmer!
Oh and Fjells - cool photo. You have nice shape. What I would recommend, if you haven't already done so, is to take photos of the front view, side view, and diagonal view!. Also when you take the photos position the camera at the same place, and stand at the same distance (Note, I didn't do that myself, but wish I had!). That way you will get quite an accurate visual of any growth. Its important to take photos from different angles, because sometimes growth on the sides, you can't really see it in a front view shot, but you can see it on the side shots etc. What is quite neat to do, is to take photos every week (even though there may be no noticeable growth, and then over say 6 weeks or so, put all the photos together, one after the other, and maybe you will notice the growth like that). Some people are very savvy with the computer and have done a great job at that! I've tried to do it, but not very well, but at least it shows how my breasts have slowly grown.
Food for thought! ;-)